Hybrid sources: depictions of garments in postcolonial textile art

In today's atmosphere of globalisation - through positive agents such as communication networks as well as negative ones such as the refugee crisis - the national and cultural identities projected by dress embrace increasingly complex influences. Postcolonial theory and its attention to material culture, hybrid identities, and the ensuing Diaspora has influenced the work of contemporary artists worldwide. Contemporary artists working with textiles use the garment shape, as a motif and sculptural form rather than a functional peice of clothing, to express the complex results of colonisation. Common to all the works discussed here is an attempt to negotiate conflicts between language, culture and history that the postcolonial world must reconcile. Examples are drawn from work by Sue Blanchfield, Michael Parekowhai, Erica Spitzer Rasmussen, Elaine Reicheck, Doris Salcedo, Yinka Shonibare and Susan Stockwell